Captain R. Preston Chew organized Chew’s Ashby Artillery, the first horse artillery in the Confederate army, in November 1861 and named it for Colonel Turner Ashby. The battery included a 3 in ordinance rifle, a 12-pounder smoothbore howitzer, and an English Blakeley rifle, a type not commonly used during the Civil War. Attached to Colonel Thomas T. Munford’s cavalry brigade, it crossed the Potomac River on September 7, followed Munford to Burkittsville on the 13th, and took this position early on the morning of the 14th. Soon afterward, the Portsmouth Light Artillery, with two 12 pound naval howitzers mounted on gun carriages, joined it. About ten o’clock, Union troops approached the gap cautiously and in great numbers, throwing out a heavy skirmish line of infantry on both sides of the road. When the skirmishers came within about a mile, Chew’s men opened fire with their rifled guns over Burkittsville and checked them about a half-mile from the village. Union artillery then opened fire from about two miles away, but its shells fell short. In returning fire, one gunner disabled the Blakeley when the rough, sloping recoil space on the steep mountainside caused the gun to snap bolts in its mounting on the second shot. Chew withdrew the Blakeley, but the rest of the battery held its position until late in the day, retiring to the opposite side of the mountain shortly before Cobb’s Legion arrived.